Ashley Leak Bryant appointed Senior Associate Dean for Global Initiatives
May 16, 2023
Ashley Leak Bryant, PhD, MSN, RN, OCN, FAAN, has been appointed Senior Associate Dean for Global Initiatives and the Frances Hill Fox Distinguished Term Scholar, effective immediately. Dr. Bryant will also serve as the director of the School’s Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) Collaborating Center in Quality and Safety Education in Nursing and Midwifery.
Carolina Nursing has ambitious plans to expand its global initiatives in the coming years, and the appointment of Dr. Bryant as the senior associate dean for global initiatives is a key step towards achieving this goal. With her extensive experience in building oncology nursing capacity in Malawi and her service as the interim associate dean for global initiatives since August 1, 2022, her appointment ensures leadership stability and the continued flourishing of the School’s global partnerships and PAHO/WHO Collaborating Center. As a highly valued international leader, educator and researcher, Dr. Bryant’s appointment is well deserved.
A co-leader of the School’s nursing initiatives for UNC Project-Malawi since 2018, Dr. Bryant has been instrumental in the development and building of oncology nursing capacity in Malawi. Through virtual cancer education sessions, research mentorship of doctoral-prepared nurses, a repository of oncology nursing education documents and chemotherapy policies, and support provided to nurses on procedural management of COVID-19, the collaboration has significantly increased the number of trained oncology nurses from 5 to 50 in just one year. Dr. Bryant and her team have received grants to support this project and have data-based publications in Global Public Health, Psycho-Oncology, and PLOS Global Public Health.
Dr. Bryant’s mission and vision are centered around service and providing a net public good. She has a successfully funded program of research focused on improving the quality of life and delivery of care for patients with hematologic malignancies and their families with a team-based palliative care approach. Her passion for global health has led her to engage in short- and long-term immersion experiences in Honduras, Peru, Guatemala, Canada and Russia, and her work from these trips has been published in the Journal of Nursing Administration, Journal of Community Health Nursing, Nursing Forum and Cancer Nursing.
Dr. Bryant holds a BSN and MSN in nursing administration from UNC-Greensboro, and a PhD in nursing and an interdisciplinary certificate in aging both from UNC Chapel Hill. She also held a post-doctoral fellowship in the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health. To learn more about Dr. Bryant’s impressive career and program of research, please read her bio here.
As a dedicated, detail-oriented and mission-driven faculty member, Dr. Bryant is essential to our global initiatives, oncology research and student mentorship in and beyond Carolina Nursing. Her visionary leadership promises to inspire and enhance a culture of global innovation and collaboration at Carolina Nursing and we congratulate her on this appointment!
